592
Stevens, J., dissenting
a private organization's right to define itself and its messages, on the one hand, and the State's right to define the obligations of citizens and organizations performing public functions, on the other; and (2) the distinction between laws that abridge participation in the political process and those that encourage such participation.
When a political party defines the organization and composition of its governing units, when it decides what candidates to endorse, and when it decides whether and how to communicate those endorsements to the public, it is engaged in the kind of private expressive associational activity that the First Amendment protects. Timmons v. Twin Cities Area New Party, 520 U. S. 351, 354-355, n. 4, 359 (1997) (recognizing party's right to select its own standard-bearer in context of minor party that selected its candidate through means other than a primary); id., at 371 (Stevens, J., dissenting); Eu v. San Francisco County Democratic Central Comm., 489 U. S. 214 (1989); Democratic Party of United States v. Wisconsin ex rel. La Follette, 450 U. S. 107, 124 (1981) ("A political party's choice among the various ways of determining the makeup of a State's delegation to the party's national convention is protected by the Constitution"); Cousins v. Wigoda, 419 U. S. 477, 491 (1975) ("Illinois' interest in protecting the integrity of its electoral process cannot be deemed compelling in the context of the selection of delegates to the National Party Convention" (emphasis added)).3 A political
3 The Court's disagreement with this interpretation of La Follette is specious. Ante, at 576-577, n. 7 (claiming that state-imposed burden actually at issue in La Follette was intrusion of those with adverse political principles into party's primary). A more accurate characterization of the nature of La Follette's reasoning is provided by Justice Powell: "In analyzing the burden imposed on associational freedoms in this case, the Court treats the Wisconsin law as the equivalent of one regulating delegate selection, and, relying on Cousins v. Wigoda, 419 U. S. 477 (1975), concludes that any interference with the National Party's accepted delegate-selection procedures impinges on constitutionally protected rights." Democratic Party of United States v. Wisconsin ex rel. La Fol-
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